The intensity of the blue dimmed by degrees. Amalia could see the shape of a ceiling through the tint. A window took shape as the flecks of white that spotted the blue connected themselves.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME
“Amalia?” She asked the apparition.
Name: Amalia
Race: Human
Level: 1
Strength
8
Dexterity
11
Constitution
10
Intelligence
11
Focus
12
Charisma
9
Luck
8
Amalia blinked rapidly to see past the dump of information. The magic window and blue tint both vanished. She was staring at a wooden ceiling. Sitting up, she found herself to be atop a simple, but comfortable bed.
Across the small room was another bed. On top of the covers was a ghostly blue outline of her sister. She watched as her sister was filled quickly into the outline, replacing the sky blue shell with her olive skinned self.
She didn’t relax until she saw Tabia take a breath.
“Tabia” Tabia said. Likely going through the same process she herself had. After Tabia had blinked her own information sheet away, she looked to her sister. They were both naked. Amalia stood and pulled the blanket from underneath herself. Wrapping themselves in the thin blankets, they sat on Tabia’s bed, huddling close. They cried together for a long time. They cried for their parents. They cried for their friends. They cried for their young lives. They cried for their uncertain fates.
~ ~ ~
Amalia wiped away her tears. She and Tabia had cried themselves out and spent ten minutes staring listlessly around the small room.
Excited whispers, as of a small crowd trying to keep quiet, could be heard coming through the shuttered window above Amalia’s bed. The sensation of being watched tickling up her spine.
A worn old chest sat on the floor between the two beds. The floor itself looked to be covered in shallow scratches. Pulling her blanket close, Amalia crept from the bed to see what was inside.
The lid was heavy, but the hinges were mercifully silent. The dark wood was warm compared to the lighter coloured wood under her bare feet.
Stacks of badly folded clothing in varying shades of brown and beige were inside. Letting her blanket drape across her shoulders, she removed several stacks with one hand while keeping the lid up with the other. She threw piles of them in the general direction of her sister, who was still staring sightlessly on her bed. She emptied the entire chest of clothes. At the bottom, previously hidden by the assortment of garments, was a wide selection of shoes. They all looked too big for her, though some might fit Tabia’s larger feet.
Tabia finally woke enough to begin pawing through the various garb. Thankfully, the few underclothes in the mix would probably fit them. Very lucky, as most of the clothing looked to be made for men.
Amalia chose a simple beige tunic with thick leather cords for tying it snug running down the side. It had a slightly musty smell from being in the chest for however long. The only pants with a sufficiently narrow waist needed the legs rolled up several times for her feet to poke out the bottom. Examining her feet, Amalia saw her beautiful orange nail polish was gone. It was a small thing, espescially in the face of the colossal changes she knew the two of them were facing. It still very nearly sent her rushing back to her sister’s bed to hide a while longer.
Tabia had chosen a similar outfit for herself, though her pants looked to be leather riding breeches. They selected a heavy woolen cloak each before sitting on Tabia’s bed once more. Tabia struggled to pull a pair of leather boots onto her feet. There had not been any socks in the chest. Amalia had never seen her sister looking so drab. She usually preferred bright colours. They both did. It was the first time she had seen her sister without any makeup in several years. She was something of a natural beauty. She had the same dark brown hair and eyebrows Amalia did. She kept her hair a little shorter and was a full six inches taller. Standing at six feet, people often thought Tabia was the older sister. A glint brought Amalia’s attention to her sister’s nose stud. Feeling at her ears she discovered she had retained her own earrings. How bizarre that they should have kept their piercings, but lost their makeup, bracelets, and rings.
“We’ll be ok” she said to her red eyed, exhausted looking sister.
Tabia’s face turned from one of melancholy to surprise.
“What did you say? Oh! What did I say!? What language are we speaking?”
Amalia’s own surprise was cut short by a knock on the door.
“Hello? Girls?” A woman’s voice. An older woman. She was definitely not speaking English.
“I’m coming in. I’ve brought tea and food!”
Somehow, they understood the oddly bouncy and rhythmic speech.
The door opened into the room. Pushed by a woman’s hip and shoulder. Amalia stood to hold the door while Tabia took a wooden tray from her hands. It was heaped with biscuits, fruit, and indeed, a tea set.
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“Oh, yes, thank you. Set it down for the moment. I can only imagine how many questions you have”
She was Amalia’s height. She had auburn curls and sun damaged skin.
“Call me Margot, or Marge, if you like”
Amalia found it terribly unclear which of the two the woman herself might prefer. She had said the second with a touch more enthusiasm.
“Uh.. well, Margot, where are we? Are we dead?”
She couldn’t say the name Marge without picturing a woman with a tower of blue hair.
“Goodness, no. Didn’t the Regulator explain? You are very much alive. This is a very real place. The planet is called Amacore. Tell me, do I detect an Australian accent?”
The girls nodded at the woman.
“Well G’day, mateys! I’ve heard all about your shrimp on the barbie” Margot chuckled to herself. “After sundown I can even point you toward your home planet. The vague direction of the universe it’s in, anyway. You are a looooong way from home. Bajillions of light years away, at a guess. My father was from America. Texas, he would have been proud to tell you. Then keep on telling you, until my mother would ask him to stop”
She looked sad at the mention of her parents.
“You’re not from Earth?” Tabia asked.
“No no. Born and raised here. Here, Amacore, specifically here in Brookdale”
Margot poured tea into several crude porcelain mugs as the sisters thought about their questions.
Amalia couldn’t keep herself from studying the woman before them. She certainly looked human. What differences should she even look for?
“Oh!” She exclaimed.
Name: Margot Race: Human Level: 6
A title card had popped into existence above the womans orange hair. It was surreal, like the world was a video game.
Skill unlocked: Perception
Pay attention to your environment and its inhabitants. A keen observer will see and know more. Knowledge is power
4/50 to level 2 Perception
She explained as best she could to Margot and her sister. “It’s a little floating label over your head. I can make it disappear if I think about it. Do I have one? Why can’t I see Tab-“ she trailed off
Name: Tabia Race: Human Level: 1
“-never mind. Tabia has one too” she felt at the space above her own head.
Tabia looked puzzled and Margot started laughing.
“You’re a quick one. It took me days of staring at critters for me to see my first. People is harder. They would get annoyed or shuffle off when I tried. I was not a popular kid that month. Ah, hells. The tea’s gone cold”
Margot poured the mugs back into the tin pot. She wrapped her fingers around its base and closed her eyes.
Amalia thought she could see ripples of.. something, washing over Margot’s hands. Perhaps even coming out of her hands. Tiny bolts of red and white danced between her fingers and the tin of the pot. Seconds later, steam fountained from the spout. It made a bittersweet smelling cloud over their heads.
“A little too much juice there. I’ll let it sit for a minute” she dabbed at her forehead with a sleeve and took a piece of fruit with a shaking hand.
“That was magic! Was that magic? Is this what the angel lady meant by Red Velvet cake?” Tabia asked, bouncing up and down on the bed.
“Darn right it’s magic. Don’t know about no velvet cakes though,”
Amalia nibbled at a slice of melon. It was drier than it looked, but also sweeter. She struggled to focus on the conversation. What were their parents doing now? Were they making arrangements for their funeral? Tabia was more willing to be distracted. “Can you show me again? Can I learn how to do it?” She had very nearly bounced herself off the bed.
“Of course! I can’t do it again for a little while though. I’ve never had much mana. Like my Papa, I just don’t have the knack,” She busied herself pouring the tea again.
“How are there humans on this world? Is it something to do with evolution?” Tabia asked, masterfully hiding her disappointment.
“Naw, nothing fancy as all that. The regulators have been sending their Chosen here for thousands of years. Only one or two a year, but that’s time to make babies. On my mother’s side I can trace back a little over a century to an Earther. Great-great Granny or some such. She was a ab-or-iginy. Story goes that she died saving her little girl from a big snake. She became a powerful evocater by anyone’s standards. She was only sixteen when she got Chosen. I might not have her dark skin, but I got some of her fire and hate snakes something powerful. That’s how they choose you, you know. They watch you. Now they can’t take the living, and nobody thinks they spends much time on the watchin’. Popular idea is they make little accidents happen. See what people do when they’s in the fire. Sometimes they get lucky and the brave idiot, no offence, has a useful skill or two,
“Since we’re on the subject, what do you bring to the table? Do you have any skills to speak of?” She made eye contact with each of them as she handed out the steaming cups “Not meaning to be insensitive. It’s just I have some folk waiting outside what want to meet you. See what you can do. That sort of thing. Don't suppose one of you knows plumbing?”
Skills? Amalia had two left feet. Everyone felt like a better dancer when she was at parties. She was a pro at binge watching television shows. Accessorising, hair and makeup, a decent tennis serve. None of those felt like skills. “I can sew a little. Tabia is great at netball. I’m an ok cook, if you like vegetarian foods” her words failed to incite any reaction from Margot.
“What’s netball? No, forget that. It’s obviously some kind of game. I’ll have you tell me about it later. Any game what isn't baseball is something I wanna' hear about,”
Tabia spoke with a mouth half full of biscuit “I’m good at computer stuff. I know a lot about photography. Do you guys have Instagram?”
“Instant gram? We measure in tens and hundreds. Papa was always confounded we were on The Metric, as he called it. He tried to teach some of us his Imperial. Poor man could never remember how many feet went into a mile”
“5280” piped Amalia.
“Really? That’s an awful way to measure. Now I’m extra glad it didn’t catch on,” she paused to sip at her tea.
“Sewing is a great skill. I’ve never heard of any computer stuff, and I’m afraid photography is more expensive than our little town can afford. We don’t need extra hands in the kitchen, but it’s still great to know,”
Margot trailed off a moment before visibly forcing a smile on her face.
“It’s fine. We’ll keep you busy. We won’t have had you here a day before we find something you’re good at. Now I know something bad has happened to the two of you. That’s a rule as you Chosen types go. You just go and trust us to set you right on your feet. Keep them chins up”
Having finished her biscuit, and several pieces of fruit besides, Tabia slowed down enough to ask, “Are there other people like us here?”
Annoyance flashed across Margot’s face. She rubbed at her forehead with her fingertips as she replied, “In a way. I won’t introduce you to Puppet yet. Your day will be busy enough. I’ll only tell you that we near tore down this little cabin the last time that Old Bitch sent one of you our way. Heck, the one the year before him wasn’t even bonded. He couldn’t speak a word of the common. Wouldn’t listen to a damn thing we tried to tell him. I speak some bits of English. That didn’t work either. We made it real clear to Miss Uppity what we would do if there was any more funny business,"
“Finish up your tea, girls. We’ve some people giving up their time to help you out today. We’ve kept them long enough,”
Amalia and Tabia cleared most of the tray. Tabia massacred the biscuits and Amalia was shoveled fruit into her mouth. She didn’t know how she could be so hungry. Didn’t the grieving process usually involve a lack of appetite? Psychological norms be damned. The fruits were sweet and the tea was.. The tea left something to be desired. Tabia liked it enough to have two cups. Too savory for Amalia's tastes. Dressed and fed, the sisters moved to follow Margot from the little room.
“You can leave the tray where it is. I’ll have an Aumer take care of all this,” Margot said, waving a hand at the mess of clothes and fruit rinds. “Amalia, little one, I am sure there was a pair of sandals your size in the chest. It’s too cold and rocky to be barefoot out here”
Amalia hurried back into the room. No longer trying to be quiet, she pushed the lid of the chest all the way open. She had to dig through the pile of larger shoes to find her prize. They had fallen to the very bottom. She pulled at the flat wooden soles to find one of the cloth straps had snagged under a heavy boot. She shifted the boot to let the strap free. Doing so revealed a word scratched into the bottom of the chest. A single english word.
Slaver.